KIRKUS REVIEW

Bergreen (Columbus:
The Four Voyages, 2011, etc.) applies his historical storytelling skills to
the famous Venetian lover, introducing his intellectual side.

Giacomo Casanova
(1725-1798) was the child of two actors from whom he inherited and perfected
his playacting abilities, which he used to his advantage as a social climber.
He trained for the church and received a doctorate in civil and canon law at
age 16, giving him the basis for his exceptional writings. His mother deserted
him and set the pattern for the Casanova Syndrome of seduction and abandonment.
He was a libertine and proud of it; he felt it better to be notorious than
obscure. He was an adventurer, mathematician, musician, and literary genius,
but he was also an obsessive gambler, losing and gaining fortune after fortune.
One of his most successful gambles was instituting the French lottery for the
state in 1758. It continued to be successful even through the French
Revolution, paying for the Ecole Militaire where Napoleon
trained. (It was Napoleon who eventually caused the collapse of Casanova’s
beloved Venice.) Casanova usually fell in love with his conquests, and
sometimes he actually failed to convince his lover to submit to him. Condemned
as an atheist by the Inquisition, he was locked up in a miserable prison on the
top floor of the Doge’s Palace. It would be nearly two decades before he was
pardoned and allowed to return to Venice. Throughout, Bergreen makes good use
of an excellent translation of his subject’s 12-volume memoir. While it was
published shortly after his death, it was censored and edited, and the first
unexpurgated version didn’t appear until 1960. The author neatly captures
Casanova’s voice, “often amused, but rarely mocking, conversational yet highly
literary, and simultaneously vulgar and brilliant.”

Casanova’s adventures
include plenty of juicy details, and Bergreen weaves in just enough to prove
his reputation. His travels during one of history’s most exciting periods will
be great fun for any history lover.

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